Darius

Darius is a bruiser with high damage potential when taking advantage of his passive, Hemorrhage. While his glaring weakness is his lack of a natural escape, he makes up for it with his damage output, his ability to stick to targets, and his execute.

Related Guides:

Item Build

Starting Items

Boots of Speed

Health Potion

x2

Sight Ward

Warding Totem (Trinket)

Typical Starting Items, Boots and 3 Health Potions. Starting boots isn't necessary as it was in Season 2 but none the less still a very good stating item for Darius as being mobile in lane allows for Darius to stay in control of the lane.

OR

Cloth Armor

Health Potion

x2

Sight Ward

Warding Totem (Trinket)

With the Jungle changes in Season 3 it's very risky to gank early as failing a gank will put the Jungler very far behind. Top laners now have the room to play more aggressive early by pushing the lane and forcing trades without worrying about the Junglergank as much. Getting Cloth armor will let you harass more. ward river about 4 or 5 minutes in.

Core Items

Ninja Tabi

or

Mercury's Treads

Early level 2 boots is crucial on Darius as he has no gap closer making MS one of the best stats on him early game and the resists that level 2 boots gives are always welcomed.

The Brutalizer

Brutalizer gives Darius all the offensive stats he would ever want. Ad,Armorpen and CDR. An early bruta combined with the armorpen runes,% pen from E and masteries will have Darius dealing true damage with his Q and autos for majority of the game. With the Season 3 item remake it builds into Black Cleaver another very good offensive item on Darius

Situational Items

As Darius it's important to find the right balance of tank stats and damage. If you build too tanky than the other team can choose to ignore you in teamfights as you won't do much damage mid-late game w/o items. On the flipside if you build too much damage without tank stats the enemy team can choose to focus you down instantly.

Phage

Phage gives a nice balance of stats and proccing a phage proc in lane will usually result in a kill.

VS AP laners (ex Rumble,Vlad) Hexdrinker is one of the most cost effective items vs AP damage and it scales nicely into lategame as its upgraded into Maw.

Endgame Items

Ninja Tabi

Frozen Mallet

Sunfire Cape

Maw of Malmortius

The Black Cleaver

Guardian Angel

Randuin's Omen

Greater Stealth Totem (Trinket)

Endgame build usually depends on what items you bought midgame , Generally it should consist of Boots 2 + Black Cleaver + Sunfire and/or Maw + Mallet + GA. As always item builds are situational and you should build to suit your need every game. If you need more armor then dont get frozen mallet, go for Randuin's omen instead.

Comments

A bit mo life steal and some other minor tweaks such as manumane or however you spell it from when you get so OP you dont has mana. Also its good still if you dont start with tank but start building the ravenous hydra.

Just tried this build/runes/masteries guide for the first time 15 minutes ago and completely obliterated top vs teemo and controlled the map--so much so--that I had to post on here after. 5/5 Kudos, we'll see how the matches go from here on out thanks for this guide it's OP

I would like 9/21/0 as you already have enough damage, and you need tanky stats to stay alive, he is totally unkillable when he built enough items and goes tanky. You can dominate the lane. (Not as good as Nasus when he gets back with 501029 farm tho)